Scuzz fukkers like Creature from Dell Pond don’t climb out of the muck
quite so often anymore, and this is a generalization based entirely upon my
limited worldview. The cusp of 1994 or 2003 is well in the rearview mirror, and
bands have crested and broken and bashed themselves to bits on the shores of
history in that time. Good thing ponds are pretty tranquil then – stagnant,
perhaps, but undisturbed by the energy of the violent passage of time. I can
vividly imagine my toes squishing in the mud where CFDP rehearse, and I come
away from the experience in obvious need of a shower.
Like Number One Cup or The Joggers or probably some old Drag City bands
or early Sub Pop bench players before them, these Chicagoans know their way
around tightly coiled guitar rock, a midwestern export as classic as corn or
wheat or soybeans. The bass is wickedly front and center quite often, and when
it’s distorted, your rump vibrates in your chair (if you’re sitting while
listening, like I am. I am always sitting). The vocals are mixed pretty high
and are speak-sung with a casual disregard for tone at times, like early
Dismemberment Plan. You don’t need a graduate degree in political science from
Yale to know that having the Dismemberment Plan in your back pocket as an
influence can open all sorts of heretofore blocked paths for popular success. (Don’t
get me wrong though – having an advanced degree from Yale would actually help,
in a lot of ways.)
At times playful, at others face-meltingly gritty, Dirty Deli is four songs that disco dance around noise rock and
post punk with healthy doses of shoulder-shrugging indie thrown in for good
measure. Take “Grammar School,” for example … which is actually called “The
First Thing You Learn in Grammar School (There’s No 2nd ‘D’ in
Drowning),” but you wouldn’t know it from the tape because it just says
“Grammar School” – I had to download this
thing first and glean this information from the frigging metadata. And I had to
download it from CDBaby, for god’s sake! Who uses CDBaby anymore? I feel like I
had a point in there somewhere that I wanted to make. Oh yeah! That’s a pretty
good song title, and it’s also probably my favorite song on the tape. Good luck
figuring it out.
For fans of: D Plan, Joggers, Number One Cup, Dope Body, Pissed Jeans,
I guess. I do like or have liked or imagined I have liked these bands now or at
some point. Or maybe I made them all up, and they’ll all disappear, including
Creature from Dell Pond, as soon as I unimagined them. Let’s not find out, for
all their sakes!
--Ryan Masteller